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Better SMF URLs

Started by Mystery?, November 22, 2008, 12:54:17 PM

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Mystery?

Offtopic:
I have previously used Pretty URLs, but when I added the Apache Error thing it glitched my forum so much that I had to manually delete it.  So I want this feature to be a default feature, so no mods mess up.

Ontopic:
I would like to see SMF URLs similar to how the vBulletin ones look, but with some new things.

/.../ = Where your forum is currently located

Like:

Board: Announcements And News
www.example.com/.../board/announcements-and-news

Profile for User Mystery?
www.example.com/.../member/Mystery?

Member List
www.example.com/.../members

Admin CP
www.example.com/.../access/admincp

User CP
www.example.com/.../access/usercp

Modification: Blog
www.example.com/.../mod/blog

Search
www.example.com/.../search

Private Messages
www.example.com/.../pm

Help
www.example.com/.../help

And Others
www.example.com/.../(name of the thing goes here)








Join my NEW website that I just created and be a big part of it (July 30, 2010): http://www.gamerstatic.net

Marcus Forsberg

That looks nice.

Another thinkg I would like is profile URLs like this
USER.example.com


Mystery?

Well most free hosts don't allow that.

Some paid hosts only allow you to have a certain number of subdomains.
Join my NEW website that I just created and be a big part of it (July 30, 2010): http://www.gamerstatic.net

青山 素子

SMF tries hard to be cross-platform, and pretty URLs and basically all the other ones out there (including the built-in "SEF" ones) require you to be running Apache with mod_rewrite.

Why do you feel the need to re-write the URLs anyway? There is no SEO benefit to it, and it's an added load to parse them properly.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


DAB Empire

Trust me.  I've been in SEO management for years.  There is a huge SEO benefit to have printed urls with words vs. the default SMF SEF links.  True, it may not help get any additional pages indexed... but it will help those indexed pages rank better.

青山 素子

I'm afraid I'll need to call you wrong on that. There have been several studies that show no difference in ranking between a URL that is keyword-rich and one that is not. In at least one study it showed that for highly-competitive keywords, having keyword-rich URLs actually harmed ranking.

Also, Google has specifically said to not rewrite URLs: Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs - Google Webmaster Central Blog
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


~kev~

Unless the feature is built in and not a modification, the resources required to rewrite every url on a big site would pull the server to its knees.

Search engine friendly URLs are nice, but -  site maps, proper keywords in backlinks, number of backlinks, quality material on the site (not duplicated from another site), those things are more important then having a pretty URL.

I have a site that ranks number 1 on several keywords in a competitive market.  I use the standard url and not the SEF kind.  But I also focus on a lot of other SEO features.

Some blogging software, such as wordpress, it lets you pick the layout of the URL.  I can see a big improvement with google ranking with wordpress sites that use SEF.

But - What happens when john smith names a thread abc, and john doe names a thread abc.  You can not have two URLS with the same name.  So the modification would have to check to see if the name exist before the thread was posted.  Can you imagine the resources needed to do this check?  Then add to that a few thousand post a day?  The resources needed to do that kind of check and compare the thread title against every thread already posted, not too many servers can handle that kind of stress.

MrMike

Quote from: DAB Empire on December 02, 2008, 02:37:48 PM
I can read "studies" all I want too.  But, unless you've actually done it yourself, I'll have to call out your "studies".  Also, that Google article references indexing.

I think the acticle from Google was pretty clear. It said, "Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static."

I guess I'm unsure as to what part of that was unclear. Google is plainly stating that they'd prefer to see dynamic URLs instead of rewritten ones.

FWIW, I run quite a few sites (~100), some using rewitten URLs. I've personally not noticed any significant difference (read: improvement) in ranking before, during, or after the changes were made. Maybe they did indeed have some tangible effect at one time, but I think that may no longer be the case.

MrMike

Quote from: ~kev~ on December 02, 2008, 04:30:42 PMBut - What happens when john smith names a thread abc, and john doe names a thread abc.  You can not have two URLS with the same name.  So the modification would have to check to see if the name exist before the thread was posted.  Can you imagine the resources needed to do this check?
Actually, this would not be a problem. The URL rewriting occurs behind the scenes, so to speak and there wouldn't be any confusion because the server is accessing it by the post id, not the rewritten URL.

Also, the amount of server resources involved in URL rewriting is trivial- even thousands and thousands of posts a day would have no real impact.

Oldiesmann

Quote from: MrMike on December 04, 2008, 09:11:57 PM
Quote from: ~kev~ on December 02, 2008, 04:30:42 PMBut - What happens when john smith names a thread abc, and john doe names a thread abc.  You can not have two URLS with the same name.  So the modification would have to check to see if the name exist before the thread was posted.  Can you imagine the resources needed to do this check?
Actually, this would not be a problem. The URL rewriting occurs behind the scenes, so to speak and there wouldn't be any confusion because the server is accessing it by the post id, not the rewritten URL.

It would be a problem if you didn't have the topic ID in the URL. The server needs to "reverse engineer" the rewritten URLs as well so it knows what to display. This is why most forums' url-rewriting addons have the topic ID in the URL. This gives each topic a unique URL, and it gives the server something unique to work with.
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

MrMike

Quote from: Oldiesmann on December 05, 2008, 04:22:45 PMIt would be a problem if you didn't have the topic ID in the URL. The server needs to "reverse engineer" the rewritten URLs as well so it knows what to display. This is why most forums' url-rewriting addons have the topic ID in the URL. This gives each topic a unique URL, and it gives the server something unique to work with.
You're correct, and it was my mistake  for assuming that people would understand this. Yes, the URLs would be unique, but people could still name threads and posts whatever they wanted, including titles that were already in use.

In his example, the URL would be something like http://somedomain.com/forum/abc_123.htm, and the second URL would be something like http://somedomain.com/forum/abc_567.htm.

Valid URLs, same title, with a unique descriptor. I've seen a number of sites use this sort of scheme, like prfocus.com. All of the URLs are formed from the article title, with a unique descriptor tacked on at the end:

http://www.prfocus.com/article.html?page=Stock_Market_Santa_Rally_Could_Correct_this_Week_11571.html

Does it improve search engine ranking? I don't pretend to know, but I suspect not.

Oldiesmann

I doubt it does either. I have rewritten URLs enabled on one of my sites because I also thought that getting keywords in URLs was the way to go - it might help a little, but certainly doesn't help much. The top keyword for that forum isn't in any of the board titles and doesn't often appear in topic titles. I just haven't disabled rewritten URLs because I need to make absolutely sure that it won't break existing links. With nearly 19,000 posts, I cannot afford to have broken links in search engines.
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

Kindred

outside of here, websites are my day to day business and the SE Optimization is a huge part of that...

What I have found is the people who really don'y know anything about search engines (or are 10 years behind the curve) think that making "human friendly" URLs is important.

The real case is that most reputable search engines don't care.  The URL is only a VERY minor part of their scan these days. They look at meta descrption, meta keywords and contextual tagging like H1, H2,P and A tags...

they also  look for linkbacks...   how often is your site linked to from outside your site?

pretty URLs are just that.. pretty. Personally, I don't care about them, and I think it would be a HUGE waste of our developers time to make that sort of junk "standard"... especially when everyone has their own isea of what "looks good".  Lastly, you seem to think that adding pretty urls would make them work better with mods...   what it ACTUALLY would mean is that many mods would either break the "feature" or would not get made because they would have to be built into the pretty schema.

(there ARE mods that do work with the pretty url mods.)



Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

bloc

I tend to agree. It does change the position already just by getting rid of the dynamic adresses. Yes, search engines can also scan effortlessly dynamic adresses  but its harder to set them in a hierarchy. By just adding more virtual "folders" though the keywords used (like site/topic/123.htm) its better already.

Of course that pays off.

MrMike

Quote from: DAB Empire on December 10, 2008, 02:04:45 PM
For further proof... I installed "pretty urls" the day I originally replied to this post.  So, in less than one week eliterides.com is now on page one of Yahoo and page 2 of Google when searching for "car forums".  It is also on page 1 for "mitsubishi car forums", "nissan car forums", "toyota car forums", etc.
I searched for "car forums" on Google and I didn't find "eliterides" in the first ten pages. (??)

青山 素子

Quote from: DAB Empire on December 11, 2008, 06:11:43 PM
That's because this morning I uninstalled "Pretty URL's" and pinged google to re-index it through webmaster tools to show further proof.

Check again now in a week or two when it re-indexes again and it'll be back on page 1 now that I've turned it back on.

URL's do make a difference.

As does consistency. You probably just blew everything you had built up for that site, and also possibly lost some trust for all the changes.

Also, it can take over a month for a change to fully show effect.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


DAB Empire

I'm smart enough to know not to mess something up.

It's already back on google.  ;)

MrMike

Quote from: DAB Empire on December 12, 2008, 06:30:41 PMIt's already back on google.  ;)
Maybe, but I'm not seeing it withing the first ten pages with a search for "car forums".

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